I have just returned to London, where I have lived since I was 11. I have been away for four years, living as an ethnic minority in a monocultural part of the world, amassing a host of stories to tell to disbelieving friends. On the whole, I am glad to return. I shan't miss some locals' assumptions that, being a white woman, if I was outside after dark, as I occasionally was, usually to walk the few metres between my house and the church, I must be a prostitute eager to give them a blow job. I shan't miss the abuse my priest husband received: the daubing of "Dirty white dogs" in red paint on the church door, the barrage of stones thrown at him by children shouting "Satan". He was called a "f***ing white bastard" more than once, though, notably, never when in a cassock. I will also not miss the way our garden acted as the local rubbish dump, with items ranging from duvets and TV sets, to rats (dead or twitching) glued to cardboard strips, a popular local method of vermin control to stem the large numbers of them which scuttled between the rubbish piled in gardens and on pavements. Yes, I am very glad to have left Britain's second city.

Brum Deal: Everyday life in Britain's second city (Photograph by Julian Anderson)

For four years, we lived in inner-city Birmingham, in what has been a police no-go area for 20 years. We know that because some plain-clothed cops told us when they asked to use our vicarage as a stake-out to bust drugs rings that pervade the area. Having heard a parishioner's tales of what his neighbours did to him when he was wrongfully suspected of having grassed up a cock-fighting ring, we refused, explaining that we had to live here, they didn't. Even during this time we saw the area change. When we arrived, the population was predominantly Pakistani. Now Somalis are there in equal number. Most of the run-down Irish pubs were turned into mosques during our time.

As a woman, it was difficult for me to gain many first-hand impressions of the Muslims. I was generally ignored by both men and women, and on the rare occasion that I had to interact, when for example a car was parked illegally and blocking my gate, I was addressed as if inconsequential. My husband, however, faithfully reported conversations which you may find somewhat alarming. One of our favourite dinner-party pieces is this: opposite our vicarage there is a "library" which has some computers, some burkas and occasionally tracts that say offensive things about Jews and Christians. My husband did his photo-copying there, and got on rather well with everybody. One day he was chatting to a man with a passing resemblance to Lawrence of Arabia, who had just arrived from Antwerp — one of an increasing number of Muslims who are arriving here with EU passports. He asked him why he had come to Birmingham. He was surprised at the question: "Everybody know. Birmingham — best place in Europe to be pure Muslim." Well, there must be many places in Europe where Muslims are entirely free to practise their faith, but I suspect there are few places in which they can have so little contact with the civic and legal structure of a Western state if they choose. It seems to be particularly easy to "disappear" if that is their intention. A parishioner once described a lorry pulling up outside his house, the side opening to reveal stacked mattresses full of sleepy, and presumably illegal, immigrants, who staggered out into broad Brummie daylight. We heard tales of how houses are exchanged for cash payments in our area. An untaxed car was once clamped by a frightened-looking official at 8am, but within hours the owner of the vehicle had organised the clamps to be sawn off, and he sped away.

Another instance of separation from the Western world is revealed in the following: my husband frequently chatted to a neighbour who could be described as one of the more questioning Muslims, and who has often provided an insight into the locals' mindset. Even this man, however, believes what the whole community thinks: the 9/11 planes were organised by Jews. Everybody knows there were no Jewish people in the World Trade Centre that day, as they had been tipped off. Oh, and the Mumbai terrorists had been kidnapped and brainwashed by Indian people. The tendency towards denial is strong. When my husband mentioned the "dirty white dogs" graffiti to a local Muslim, the response was, "One of your people did it." I have to say that the police's response was no better when the local Methodists complained about the same thing. They chose not to believe it had happened, since we had removed all sign of it with the buckets of anti-graffiti chemicals we had stocked since we arrived. They asked, somewhat pathetically: "Are you sure it was racist?"

To a London reader, born and bred with multiculturalism, I know that my stories may come across as outlandish and exaggerated, and that I must surely be a BNP voter — I have observed people's expressions as they have listened to my tales of life in Brum. When I recently told a friend how a large Taliban flag fluttered gaily on a house near St Andrew's football stadium for some months, her cry of "Can't you tell the police?" made me reflect how far many of our inner cities have been abandoned by our key workers: our doctors and nurses drive in from afar, the police, as mentioned before, have shut down their stations and never venture in unless in extremis — they and ambulance crews have been known to be attacked — even the local Imam lives in a leafier area.

Only the priest remains, if you can get one — the thriving but clerically-vacant church down the road has had no applicant in two years. In their absence, we get stabbings that never make the news, dog- and cock-fighting rings, cars torched as pranks and cars used for peddling heroin. (One of the more amusing moments of our time came when a local lad provided one reason people often gave us stares when we drove past such deals: "Two white people wearing seatbelts — you've got to be cops.") In their absence, we simply have the witness of those who are unlikely to be heard, who, through a variety of unfortunate circumstances, have not been able to move out: the elderly, the infirm, the illiterate, the chronically poor. Indeed, some of the Muslim residents deeply regret the flight of the non-Muslim population. It is they who now have to live in a crime-ridden ghetto.

On holiday in Germany recently, we watched a TV documentary about how schools were coping with Essen's growing Muslim community, and how the community itself felt. When it was over, we turned to each other, and said simultaneously (a drawback of having been married for a while), "This could not have been made in Britain." At the moment, also in Germany, the whole country is debating Thilo Sarrazin's controversial book Deutschland schafft sich ab ("Germany abolishes itself"), in which the author — a former member of the board of the Bundesbank and the German Social Democrats — examines research about immigrant communities and then makes specific recommendations about the integration of the Muslim community. I have only seen scant reference to this in the British press, which usually dismisses it, wrongly and lazily in my view, as good old German racism. This has nothing whatsoever to do with race. The Muslim community in Birmingham, for instance, is made up of people from many continents and races, including Afghans, Yemenis, Pakistanis, Indians and Somalis.

There is no doubt in my mind that we need to have the same openness in discussing what is happening to many cities in Britain. If current demographic trends continue over the next few decades, the West Midlands, as well as other parts of the country, will become a predominantly Muslim area. Much more needs to be done to integrate the communities among whom I lived, and we need to be much less negligent of our own values too. Frankly, if we happened to walk down Broad Street on a Friday night, where mobs of identically undressed and mostly aesthetically unpleasing gals and lads were on the piss and pull, it was almost a relief to drive back to our ghetto enclave.

It is time to rub the rime from our eyes and to look clearly at the shape of Britain today. Everyone living here needs to be able to talk about what they see, without the lazy or fearful, but certainly paralysing, accusation of racism. Only then will we be able to discern what is best for the future.

I am English born and bred, but I have lived and worked in Muslim countries for a total of seven years (I speak Arabic and Dari), during which time – amongst other things – I served and fought as a commissioned officer in one Muslim army, and as a volunteer guerrilla commander in another. I now live in South Africa, where I have an African fiancée. I have read all the comments on this article, am saddened by their general tenor, and wish to inject a few notes of reality. Yes, the treatment of women in many, but by no means all, Muslim societies is appalling. They are not alone. My fiancée’s ex-husband beat her up several times, on the final occasion so badly that he was slung straight into jail. Her mother, who disapproves strongly of our relationship, told me that her daughter should have accepted this behaviour because women “must do what they’re told”. Such attitudes are widespread on this continent, as is the practice of female circumcision. Should we therefore ban entrance to the UK of African peoples, en masse? Please remember that it is only last century that we English gave women the vote, and any sort of rights in the event of divorce. Next, there may indeed be some violent passages in the Koran – when did you last read the Old Testament? Yes, Islam was once a violence-prone religion. And the crusades? And evangelical colonialism? Certainly there is modern Islamic sectarian violence. Northern Ireland? Islam has for some centuries been a peaceable religion. The recent upsurge of Jihadic nonsense can to a large extent be laid at the door of the CIA, whose benighted policies in Afghanistan at the time of the Soviet occupation (a country and an era of which I have much first-hand, front-line experience) gave immense succour to the fundamentalist bigotry of today. It is not a threat – such people are massively incompetent. Finally, the current feelings against Muslims in the UK today are little different from the anti-Catholicism or the anti-Semitism of the past, or the more recent dislike of black immigrants from the Caribbean or Indians from Uganda. We have perfectly adequate laws in the UK to deal with the racist behaviour so believably described in this article. Just enforce them; and educate the young. Time will heal the rest.

Paul

January 21st, 20112:01 PM

So, anonymous articles it is now, is it?
During the past seven years I have visited Birmingham 15 times and stayed for one week each time in the city centre. I have two friends - both single white professional women - living in the city centre. They love it and have never encountered any of the sort of problems your anonymous writer has described.

No Fool

January 19th, 20116:01 PM

birmrugby January 17th, 2011 5:01 PM SAYS:
"If this was an honest article the writer would have left their name, not an anonymous sign-off, and it stinks of a deeper agenda."
Ha! The kettle calling the pot black! The same could be said with your own disingenuous tripe!!

Ardvk

January 19th, 20119:01 AM

In the last 10 years I have seen many areas of London transformed from nice, peaceful, clean and pleasant areas - to Third World slums full of crime, welfare lifestyle and no-go areas for ordinary Brits.
This has happened at such a pace, that areas I visited only a few years ago I would no longer visit.
The Third World is pouring into London like water from a broken pipe, whole areas of the city now resemble run-down, ram-shakled slums of Africa and Arabia. The wealthy suburbs remain mostly White.
I feel like a stranger in many areas of this wonderful city.
It is also interesting to note that the media that reports on this is almost entirely made up of Middle/Upper class, white, wealthy socialists who themselves live in the few all-White areas.
I recently met a BBC journalist who lived in a rich White area utterly free of immmigrants - apart from the odd cleaner.
You get the picture.

Anonymous

January 18th, 20115:01 PM

ISLAMOPHOBIC- lets look at this word, if it means am I scared of ISLAM then yes I am islamophobic and anyone that is not is incredibly naive, don't just believe what you're told DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH AS I HAVE, research the words taqqiya, fatwa, kuffar and jihad(this is not just extremists its in their holy book)also look at countries like the lebanon before and after islamic domination, please don't take my word, research this yourself and prepare to be amazed and astounded that our government is letting this happen.
after all we have done for gay rights and womens rights they want to reverse it all (research sharia law) again don't take my word, use your brain to research and come to your own informed decision just like the great british public used to.

Anonymous

January 18th, 20113:01 PM

Sounds like areas of Detroit. It beggars the mind where the US is headed.

Anonymous

January 18th, 201111:01 AM

Where I come from, near Margate, Kent, I tell the people about inner city life throughout the UK, and they don't believe me.

Beauceron

January 17th, 20118:01 PM

Look, the West is dead. And, to paraphrase TS Eliot, it will go not with a bang, but a whimper. The Left began slowly strangling the West and the traditions that had built it in the early 60s. Now all of our forming institutions-- the media and schools at every level-- are controlled by the Left. They make us who we are. And they have conditioned us to be hateful and disrespectful of everything Western and respectful and admiring of everything non-Western. The Left has slowly eaten away at Western culture like an acid for nearly half a century and there is little remaining of its cultural traditions. We're citizens of the world, remember? Do you honestly blame these Muslims for wanting nothing to do with it? I don't. They are strong and the West is weak. Their traditions are widely respected and held in esteem-- why in the world would they compromise? Look, it's over-- the time to resist was decades ago. And as most of you here likely took great pride in being secular, multicultural, anti-westernist-- or at least happily relativist-- you have nothing to complain about. You murdered the West. Don't whine about it now.

birmrugby

January 17th, 20115:01 PM

I have lived in Birmingham for many years and frankly think this article is islamaphobic nonsense. I've lived in Small Heath, sparkbrook, Selly Oak, Edgbaston, Moseley and am a serving police officer. There are NO "no-go" areas for police in Birmingham; this is the U.K., not south Central L.A. Sure there are bad areas, but there is not a single city in the world that doesn't have crime-heavy areas, always poor, and not confined to a particular race or colour. Most people have always thought of Birmingham being a particularly well-established multi-cultural community. Race/hate crime is not common in any way, and I'm sorry but I just don't believe any of what you are saying. The only cogent point is that open discussions need to take place; unfortunately inflammatory articles like this contribute nothing towards them. If this was an honest article the writer would have left their name, not an anonymous sign-off, and it stinks of a deeper agenda. Stop putting down Birmingham-it's a great city and we love it..